Archive for
November, 2008

November 27th, 2008 by
Keith

The time has finally come for Mac users who love BitTorrent. The popular and widely-used uTorrent is now available in Mac platform; combing the lightweight power and high performance of the uTorrent feature, Mac users can delightfully choose to use this application – uTorrent for Mac – now.

However, do note that this application is still currently under beta development and bugs my be present. Do not deploy this on production machines.

November 24th, 2008 by
Keith

Great news for Ubuntu lovers. The latest alpha version of Ubuntu 9.04, nick named Jaunty Jackalope, is now officially released for public to try. As part of the development cycle, this alpha version is the first of the 6 Alphas, 1 Beta and final Release Candidate, prior the Final Release.

Current Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex users can upgrade directly from the Ubuntu desktop. Firstly, press Alt+F2 key and type in “update-manager -d” into the command box. This will bring up the Update Manager console informing you that “New distribution release ‘9.04′ is available“. Simply click on Upgrade and follow the on-screen instructions to upgrade your Ubuntu version.

New Users can download the installation files from the link below. However, please note that this is still under development and it is strongly advised that it is not to be deployed for production. The final release will be available on April 23rd, 2009.

November 23rd, 2008 by
Keith

It is easy for Linux users in Linux environment to access Windows partitions, such as FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS, by mounting the volume in the operating system. However, it is not easy to do so for the reverse; that is, to access Linux partitions (files and folders) from Windows environment.

Nonetheless, the task is not impossible. Although Microsoft did not equip the Windows operating systems with this feature, it can done via Disk Internals Linux Readers. With this tool, users can access the ext2 and ext3 partitions from Windows.

November 17th, 2008 by
Keith

Last week, Apple released the latest version of Safari 3.2 web browser for both Windows and Mac (Tiger and Leopard) platforms. Though available on the site, the announcement was still showing version 3.1.

The update of this application over the previous version is recommended for all Safari users as this release features several protection features for users, such as identifying fraudulent phishing websites. Furthermore, it includes some bug fixes and security enhancement to ensure users surf the web safely.

November 17th, 2008 by
Keith

Where graphical editing tools are concerned, in my opinion, there is nothing that beats these 2 top products in the market – Adobe Photoshop and GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program). Whereas the former requires users to pay for its use, the latter is released under the GNU GPL license, such that users can download the application for free and use it as according to the regulation stated by its license. Anyway, the news here is that, GIMP Portable 2.6.2 is released for your update.

GIMP Portable 2.6.2 is slightly different from GIMP 2.6.2, in the sense that this application is “portable“; that is, the installation can be done on a USB thumb drive or a removable drive and data is not written onto the hard disk drive. Thus it allows users to carry the application on a thumb drive and move it from one PC to another. That is an amazing feature, if you are working in an environment where installation of programs is strictly prohibited on the host PC.

November 16th, 2008 by
Keith

Released just yesterday, WordPress 2.7 Beta 3 is made available for WordPress enthusiasts and developers to try out the latest version of 2.7, prior its official stable release. Compared to the beta release, over 160 fixes were carried out to ensure this major version release is appropriate for production servers.

November 13th, 2008 by
Keith

Although there is nothing much for current Google Chrome users to do, you may be interested to know that the latest version of Google Chrome is 0.4.154.18.

As I speak, Google Chrome is quietly upgrading your version to the latest release at the background. This can be quite disturbing because if you don’t click on the “About Google Chrome” link on the program, you probably will not realise the change in the version number.

Nevertheless, for new users, this is probably good news for you too: Google is still keeping Google Chrome as updated as possible. It is not a software that they will simply develop and leave it aside. That’s a sign of relief. Thus, if you are interested to use Google Chrome as your web browser, access the download site from the link below.

November 8th, 2008 by
Keith

One of the most useful applications developed by Microsoft is the Microsoft Outlook Connector. With this application, users can access Microsoft Windows Live Hotmail or Microsoft Office Live Mail accounts from their Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 or Microsoft Outlook 2007 software.

Using the connector, the emails messages, contacts and calendars are accessible directly from the client software. Best of all, it’s free!

November 5th, 2008 by
Keith

Anyone who uses WordPress should really take a look at this WordPress 2.7 Beta 1! After running it on my personal blog site, I realised this is definitely worth recommending for a trial, despite it currently being in beta development stage. In this version, it contains a complete change of interface and design. The experience whilst surfing using Firefox was absolutely brilliant.

However, as noted by Ryan Boren from WordPress, this release is not free from glitches; there are some issues when used with certain browsers (although I have never tried them myself). It is believed that Microsoft Internet Explorer and Opera may have a little problem using this WordPress version.

There will be a release candidate version released on November 10th, 2008. It is intended to be a high-quality, near-finish release that is likely to fix most bugs present currently on the system. Nonetheless, the final official release is likely to happen by end of November.